


Return

by trustingHim17



Series: Rekindling Hope [8]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, Story: His Last Bow, Trust, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25516474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: “I…have to go away for a while.” When Holmes shows up in London unannounced, Watson’s trust is put to the test.
Series: Rekindling Hope [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776541
Kudos: 15





	Return

I dragged myself out of bed, forcing my old injuries to accept the arrival of another day. Their complaints had increased more as time went on, and I was growing tired. Tired of patients, tired of the cold of London wreaking havoc with my old wounds, tired of having to force myself out of bed every day solely because my scars throbbed and ached with every movement. It would not be long, I knew, before I accepted the inevitable and joined Holmes in retirement.

My patients were all relatively simple diagnoses: a cold, the flu, an occasional injury, and, of course, the continuous supply of hypochondriacs, in to make sure the sneeze resulting from a cloud of pepper was not a sign of some illness. They were yet another thing I tired of, no matter that without them my pocketbook would be much emptier.

I rather doubted I would spend another winter in London, but I wondered if I should retire sooner. If I retired now, I would have the freedom of the summer months to make the move to Sussex. Sussex was warmer than London, as well, and Holmes had pointedly mentioned several times that on the days when the cold limited me to my rooms, it was plenty warm enough for him to go for a walk along the shore.

He never specified whether he actually _walked_ along the shore, and I knew better than to ask. Only one of us had ever possessed a propensity for walks, and it was not Holmes. He would have told me that I was ignoring the point, and I would have fought not to mention that his only point was to try to get me to move.

By this time, I was only holding out through sheer stubbornness. His round-about arguments for why I should retire and move out there got more creative every year, and I wondered how far he would take it before he stopped being vague and just asked.

I was betting that it wouldn’t be long, but I still had to decide if I would wait it out or retire before the cold weather came back to torment me.

I mulled over these thoughts for several weeks, never speaking of them to Holmes during our conversations and occasional visits. I knew what he would say, and I wanted to make sure I knew what _I_ would say before I brought it up. Moreover, if he believed I was getting close to agreeing, he might stop his attempts to “persuade” me, and his last one had been highly entertaining. I was growing close to a decision when Holmes appeared in my consulting room one evening, just as I was showing the last patient out the door.

“Holmes!” I grinned at his surprise arrival, and I quickly ushered the patient out and closed the door behind him. “What are you doing here? Did I miss a telegram?” He usually sent a telegram announcing when he was coming to London, but mistakes happened, and this would not be the first time the message had gone astray.

He studied me, no doubt noticing the limp I made no attempt to hide and the exhaustion showing in my face. It had been many months since I had slept the night through—since last fall, at least—and the few times I had seen him, I had taken pains to hide my exhaustion. Showing up unannounced had left me no time to cover how tired I was, and I knew he could see it all.

“Holmes?” I asked when he did not reply immediately. “Is something wrong?”

He remained quiet, continuing to study me, and I could see that he was searching for words. Deciding that I probably wanted to sit for whatever this was, I led him into my sitting room, studying him as I lowered myself into my armchair and he took the one opposite. His lack of reply told me that there had been no telegram for me to miss, and when I combined that with the way he fidgeted in his seat, nervous about something, I began to wonder what he was about to tell me. In the years after his retirement, he had rarely made the journey to London, preferring me to join him in Sussex, and he had never arrived unannounced.

“You are scaring me, Holmes,” I prodded when he again tried and failed to tell me what was on his mind. “What is going on?”

He tried once more before he succeeded in quietly saying, “I…have to go away for a while.”

I stared at him for a moment. Was that it?

“Where?” I asked. “Why?”

“It is safer that I do not answer that.”

“Holmes, you cannot announce you are leaving, then refuse to tell me anything about it. What can you tell me? Why are you leaving?”

He sighed, his fidgeting reducing to a bouncing leg as he looked at me. “The Foreign Minister and the Premier each came to the cottage. They need me to come out of retirement. The only thing I can tell you is that it will start in America.”

I made no immediate reply, absorbing that.

“How long?”

“I do not know.”

“You will be reporting to Mycroft?”

He nodded, and I caught a hesitance in his gaze.

“You will not be able to keep in contact, will you?”

He hesitated. “No,” he finally admitted. “I will check in occasionally with Mycroft, but we can risk nothing more.”

I nodded absently. I had been half-expecting that. “When do you leave?”

A flicker of…something crossed his face too quickly for me to identify.

“In the morning.”

In the morning? He would be leaving tomorrow morning? To go who knows where for an indeterminate amount of time? I wasn’t sure which was worse: that he was coming out of retirement at the government’s request—something was going to happen, and I doubted it would be good—or that I would be unable to watch his back. There were days I could not leave my house, and something like that could easily give us away. Besides, it was easier to hide one than two. My presence would put him in danger.

Holmes fidgeted again, obviously uncomfortable, and I realized I had been staring through the wall opposite.

“Mycroft wanted me to leave immediately, but I told him I would not leave without first telling you,” he said quietly. “I would not do that to you again.”

I nodded quickly. “I know that, Holmes.”

I truly did. I knew he would not leave me wondering about his fate again. He knew what would happen if he did.

It had taken years to learn to trust him again, to fully trust him with everything. He had seen the long path I had traveled after his return, and I knew he would not want to watch that again any more than I wanted to experience it. Grief and anger take different forms for different people and in different circumstances, and if he had delayed his return after Switzerland much longer, there might not have been anything left to return to. I had been days from leaving London, from disappearing from everyone else’s view in an attempt to find myself, in an attempt to prevent something more permanent.

I had conquered those demons, however, with his help, and I trusted him now to not reawaken them.

“I hate that I cannot go with you,” I told him.

Relief flickered across his face, and I wondered what he had been expecting. He gave me no chance to ask, however. “I know, but we would be too obvious together. Too many people would recognize the two of us. It is better, safer, this way.”

“What about your cottage?”

Annoyance briefly crossed his face. “I have closed it and sold my bees. It is better if no one notices my absence.”

I caught the hint and nodded. “I will catch the first ship out, if you need me.” His gaze softened slightly, and I continued with a smirk, “And I may do so even if you don’t need me.”

He huffed in feigned annoyance. “If Mycroft tells me that you have disappeared from London, I will know where to search, then.”

I chuckled faintly, but the amusement died when I spoke again. “Holmes?” He looked up at me. “Return.”

He nodded, and I knew he had understood what I hadn’t said.

Do it right, but don’t take too long. Come back safely. I will be waiting.

I will miss you, my friend.

I held eye contact for a long moment before glancing at the clock. “Supper on the Strand?” I asked him, “For old time’s sake? We can while the night away as we used to. I have no patients early tomorrow.”

He quirked a smile at me, knowing that I would normally have a full consulting room on a Friday morning, but he made no comment, taking the offer as the olive branch it was.

“Is Simpson’s still there?”

I followed him out the door as I answered, “You know, Holmes, if you came to London more often, you would know which restaurants had closed.”

He groaned at the old jibe, and I laughed. “Yes, Simpson’s is still there.”

We walked slowly down the street, talking and remembering and planning things to do when he returned. I knew he had noticed how much my old wounds were bothering me, but he never said a word, only slowing his pace to match mine.

For the night at least, we could pretend that he was not going away, not going to serve his country in a way that would no doubt be dangerous. I could pretend I would not worry about him out there, without me at his back, and he could pretend he would not be thinking of me.

We could pretend it was 1900, long before his retirement, instead of 1912, and we were simply taking a walk together, as we so often had.

We could pretend a lot of things, but there was no need for him to pretend that I would be waiting for him to return. He knew that without my saying it. I would no doubt bother Mycroft incessantly for updates over the next however long it would be (my mind suggested years, based on Holmes’ avoidance of the question, and I tried not to dwell on that), but I would wait for him to come back.

After all, I would not be alone, so long as I knew he would return.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always greatly appreciated :)


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